


irwin miller, shoe salesman

by orphan_account



Series: thieving sons of [4]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, don't think there are actually any warnings for this one, i was supposed to be writing something else but have this instead, louis and niall are children when they're together, nick is melodramatic i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2809667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick finds a gift from Louis under his couch and things go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	irwin miller, shoe salesman

**Author's Note:**

> nick's perspective!!! procrastination!!!! yay!!!!!

They’d been doing better, him and Louis. Still bickering, of course, but mostly for fun, and Louis hadn’t taken his phone and changed all the contacts for a few weeks. So Nick thought they were doing better.

Apparently not, he corrects, as he trips over his coffee table.

With his shin throbbing and his face pressed to his living room floor, he rethinks the entire relationship. All because there’s a bright orange crayon under the couch, right in his eye line. He doesn’t know how Louis did it or why, but he does know one thing: Louis is some kind of evil genius.

Rolling on his back, Nick pulls his phone out of his pocket. He answers Fiona’s texts first, because she needs to know what they’re doing tonight, where they’re going, but then he sends a message off to Harry ( _did you know he broke in????_ ) and finally calls Louis.

“He _llo_ ,” Louis answers. Nick catches another voice; Louis shushes them. “To what do I owe this displeasure, Nicholas?”

It used to be incredibly annoying, Louis calling him Nicholas. For a while Nick thought it started sounding fond and he got used to it. Now, however, he mostly wants to hit Louis. At least kick him in the shin. He’ll keep that under wraps, though.

“Is there any particular reason,” he says, “I am laying on my living room floor?”

Louis is quiet for a moment, some rustling going on behind him. Then he laughs. A lot. “ _Oh_. Oh, Nick, I forgot I did that.”

He laughs some more while Nick contemplates his ceiling and how exactly he should murder Louis Tomlinson. It couldn’t trace back to him, or Harry would kill him back. Louis stops abruptly with a squeak. Nick refuses to smile.

“Niall!” Louis scolds, voice far away. “The fuck?”

Then Nick hears a few slaps and his definitely-not-a-smile definitely does not grow. After a huff, Louis talks to him again.

“Remember when you said—douchily I might add—that I didn’t _have what it takes_ to be a burglar?”

“Which time?” Nick asks. He’s still annoyed, absolutely, but there may be a little guilt mixing in. Louis huffs a little at that, too, although Nick suspects it’s more of a laugh.

“It was the day after you. In the mall, after Harry left,” he says, sounding vaguely uncomfortable. Frowning, Nick tries to remember a specific day he somethinged in the mall after Harry left, presumably with Louis. It doesn’t take long for the memory of a (rather enjoyable) kiss to come to the surface.

(“After he WHAT?” Niall is demanding. “ _Tell me!_ ”)

“Oh, um. Right,” Nick replies, and there’s that little huff again, mingling with the sounds of a shoving match.

“Yeah,” Louis says, breathless. “Hang on.”  His voice does the far-away thing again. “Niall James Horan, I swear to god I will get out of this car!”

“You wouldn’t!” Niall shouts.

“I would!” Louis shouts back, loud enough that Nick has to hold the phone away from his ear. He’s unprepared for Louis to start talking to him again. “Anyway, after _that_ I started going in your house and slowlymovingallyourfurnituregottagobye!”

He hangs up so fast, Nick is still trying to understand what he said by the time he registers the silence.

He. Multiples times, it had to be. Louis broke in multiple times and _moved all this furniture_?

_What?_

And what if he saw—

No, Louis would have said something about that. He wouldn’t be able to contain himself.

Nick calls him again, and it takes so long for Louis to answer he thinks he’s going to be sent to voicemail. Except it’s not Louis that answers; it’s Niall.

“Tell me what you did in the mall!” he yells.

“Nick!” Louis calls, slightly muffled and very distressed. Nick would be worried if he hadn’t met Niall before. “Don’t you dare!”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asks, and Niall relays it.

“Because,” Louis says, sounding normal again, if not a little quiet. “Then it’ll never happen again.”

“Oh my god!” Nick hears Niall exclaim. “Did you two fuck?!”

“Niall!” Louis shrieks.

“In a _mall_! Oh my god!”

The call disconnects in the middle of one of them screaming. If Nick had to guess, it was Niall. He’s a little worried for poor Niall, but he has more pressing things on his mind.

Wriggling over to the couch, Nick collects the porcelain crayon—knowing when Louis started this, it makes a lot more sense—and gets to his feet. He brushes off bits of dust and dirt as he walks up the stairs to what he is desperately praying Louis didn’t stumble across.

Nick opens the door to his stupid hoard, a room full of knickknacks and junk he’s taken from the houses he’s visited, displayed on various shelves. Any piece of it is something he knows Louis would love, something he saw and smiled at because he imagined Louis’ enthusiasm for such a worthless thing, and he inevitably added it to the things he and Fiona and Matt and Ian were already stealing.

He places the crayon on the shelf closest to the door and almost leaves. But then he sees a little post-it sticking out from the side of a bookcase across the room. He panics as he goes over to grab it, and Nick has never seen Louis’ handwriting before, but he would bet his life this is it.

 _thinking of me?_ the post-it says. There’s a winky face, too.

That’s it; Nick is going to have to move. He’ll have to change his name, maybe even get plastic surgery so he’s not recognizable. This is the end of Nick Grimshaw. From now on he’s going to be Irwin Miller and he’ll sell shoes.

Then he turns the post-it over and calms down.

_i like it up here._

There’s no reason that should cease his panic; it could just as easily be Louis teasing him more. But, Nick thinks, if it was, why didn’t he write it on the front, too?

He sticks the post-it back on the bookcase, surveys the room for any blank spaces (finds none, surprisingly), and leaves. His phone buzzes downstairs, where he must have dropped it on the floor. Before he gets to it, it goes off another four times.

Every text is from Louis. Nick laughs reading them.

_Sfisd yo ighsn fcuhdjk ibc sdtyhd masdnjjl >?>>?@_

_Fucking nail is an idiot_

_NIALL is a TREASURE_

_NAILFILE IS A BASTARD!! IGNORE THESE_

Snorting down at the screen, Nick returns to his thread with Fiona, remembering he didn’t tell her Ian was driving tonight. Louis sends a final message while he’s still typing.

_Did you get the present I left you?????_

_Very funny,_ Nick sends back, and then, _Still ugly as fuck_.

He gets a picture of Louis and Niall’s hands flipping him off, the rear window of a car in the background. At least those two seem to have made up.


End file.
